Diary Day 6: Duckwater to Hot Creek

We left the Ruby Mountains and rode our motorcycles over the old Pony Express trail back down to Eureka where we fueled up. Our plan was to try to hit two more hot springs today... Oh, I should talk about our new obsession: Hot Spring Hunting. 

John read about a few hot springs before our trip and he said if we soak in 10 hot springs we can send in for a patch. Well, after sitting in the middle of Ruby valley we decided to give it a try. 10 tubs in 7 days. 

Today our goal was to hit Duckwater and then take a shortcut over the mountains to Hot Creek. 

Duckwater was amazing. It's crystal clear and big enough to swim around in. After riding all morning I couldn't get in fast enough. 

Then it was on to Hot Creek... And this short cut I planned. 

Turns out the dirt road went down through a sandy wash for 20 miles. And the Triumph Tiger 1200 doesn't like sand much. I crashed my bike for the first time and twisted my ankle and knee. Luckily that's all the damage. John snapped some photos so I'll add them later. 

But we finally made it down to the Hot Creek spring and it was worth it. 

I was tired, sore and hot. But the pool was just right. We jumped in and floated around for a while. 

Then we setup camp and made some dinner. As we were pitching camp we met three guys who had been hunting and camping this area for 35 years. They invited us over to their fire for some fun stories. I got to play mandolin for a while and we all laughed and had a great time. 

I'm happy and tired. Tomorrow we head for Warm Springs and then on back toward Bishop. The trip is coming to an end but we have 6 hot springs under our belt. Only 4 more and we can get our patch!